A New Mixed-Use Development Spurs Controversy in Cumming, Georgia

Screenshot of the proposed development

Despite controversy and opposition, Forsyth County has approved a 118-acre mixed-use development in Cumming, Georgia, on Hwy 9. Even the description gave rise to debate. Is it a mixed-use development, a technology park, or, as the name implies, Forsyth Country Industrial Park?

The plan proposed by McDonald Development Company is to build almost a million square feet of industrial buildings and age-restricted condos on Hwy 9, just north of the intersection of Majors Road, in Cumming, Georgia.

The area was zoned single-family residential, but the new proposal called for 95 acres of industrial use, 20 acres of residential, and 4 acres of commercial, and will include parking for over 1,000. The remaining 30 acres will be left open. The area will span from highway 9 to Ga-400.

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The over-55 community will be made up of 88 attached townhomes with a minimum 1,500-foot floor plan. These condos will be built by The Orchards Group which currently has five locations in Forsyth County including one under construction on Keith Bridge Road, also in Cumming, Georgia. They also built the Orchards of Big Creek, which is just a couple of miles south.

This development was of particular interest to me and my neighbors as the additional traffic will directly impact us. We also happen to live in an Orchards community. We spent a great deal of time investigating work done by The Orchards Group in Forsyth, Fulton, Cherokee, and Gwinnett Counties before investing in their property. We settled on the Cumming, Georgia, area due to the combination of nearby amenities and plenty of greenspace.

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Although the board acknowledged that the Orchards built a good product, the residential portion didn't fit cohesively into the overall project like a typical mixed-use development. But the developers wanted to include the residential portion because leaving it all as industrial and commercial would require devoting too much space to the industrial project.

According to the applicant, "We're already at almost 1 million square feet of space, had that entire property had to been used as office/distribution, it just would have been 15 years of absorption and no one in today's investment world can afford to hang onto that kind of non-performing asset for that long. It needed a residential component."

As a future neighbor of this development, I greet this news with mixed feelings. Although I love the area's rural feel, I'm all for controlled expansion, especially limited commercial. It would be nice to see new places to eat close by without venturing into Fulton County or up to Market Place.

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But, as one who has to take frequent left turns onto Hwy 9 unassisted by a traffic light, more traffic is not appealing. The way the property is situated, all traffic, including increased tractor-trailer traffic, will have to enter and exit onto Hwy 9. And our intersection is at a major route between Hwy 9 and Ga-400 south.

As far as I know, all of the current Orchard's developments are stand-alone residential communities. It's unsure how plopping a neighborhood full of senior citizens into the middle of an industrial area will fare for the residents. The plan calls for the homes to be closer to Hwy 9, with a few commercial buildings in front of it. But they will be surrounded on two sides by industrial buildings of up to 222,750 square feet. That's a lot of traffic noise, although I can personally attest to the excellent sound-reducing quality of Orchards townhomes.

McDonald Development has about a dozen other developments in Georgia, but all to date are purely industrial/commercial. They currently have projects spanning five states in the southeast United States.

The proposal passed by a vote of 3-1.

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